Opinion


previously spent on the fallout of poor disease monitoring can be saved by the NHS.


mHealth is paramount in getting BAME communities the monitoring and medical treatment they need during the pandemic. But due to fac- tors like language difficulties, religious beliefs and poverty, to name a few, BAME people have not been able to get the help they so desperately need.


mHealth and the BAME


The CheckUp Health app is the only solution of its kind that focuses on the healthcare sector in the HBP/T2D BAME community that has been im- pacted by Covid-19. With the mHealth app and website, patients are empow- ered to manage their own health by monitoring their blood pressure/type 2 diabetes safely from their own homes using remote monitoring devices. During the pandemic, BAME patients had 20% less access to treatment than before Covid-19, which severe- ly affected their ability to get the Covid-19 treatment they needed. As a result, and because T2D and HBP increases the risk of severe Covid-19 infection, BAME patients have a 10%- 50% increased risk of death. The pandemic ultimately exposed the exacerbated longstanding inequalities affecting BAME people in the UK, and their health outcomes are now worse than ever. A second Covid-19 wave is very likely, so the NHS is now under immense pressure to deliver quality real-time care to these groups amidst the pandemic. Thanks to the app and remote mon-


itoring devices, users can perform many of the tests required for type 2 diabetes /high blood pressure without having to travel and be unnecessari- ly exposed to Covid-19. This will not only improve the overall health of the BAME community, but also assist the NHS by saving time and about £120m/year (PHE, 2017) if HBP/T2D is managed more effectively.


Remote monitoring


Healthcare professionals will receive self-monitored data that patients have sent if the data collected by the app moves out of acceptable parameters. There is also an auto-report function that will automatically send alerts to clinicians and healthcare profession- als. The app is fast and secure and has been designed by healthcare pro- fessionals according to all regulatory standards.


GP appointments for BAME patients will be significantly reduced with the provision of remote monitoring, saving the NHS time and money. The result of this is that the huge backlog of chron- ic disease patients will be addressed after the worst of the Covid-19 pan- demic is over.


The project is vital in improving the health of BAME communities which have been over-looked in the past due to various factors. Because of the im- pact the remote monitoring solution will have on minority groups in the UK, Innovate UK, the UK’s innovation agency, have awarded funding to drive the project forward and make a real impact.


Fungai Ndemera, Director of CheckUp 11


Health, shares the reason she started the project:


“Both my dad and father In-law passed away a week apart due to undiagnosed diabetes. They passed away at a time when we least expected them to, some years back. The memories of their sudden death and the pain left to us and our mothers drove me to research more and want to be part of the people who help solve problems caused by hy- pertension and diabetes. “What shocked me in my research is that 415 million people are estimat- ed to be living with diabetes globally, approximately 1 in 11 of the world’s adult population. This figure is pro- jected to increase to 642 million peo- ple by 2040.


“According to new NHS research, almost one in three people who have died in hospital in England af- ter testing positive for Covid-19 also had diabetes. The risk is also more pronounced for men, people of black or Asian ethnicity and those in more deprived communities. Those with pre-existing kidney disease, heart fail- ure and previous strokes are also at high risk, regardless of the type of dia- betes they have.”


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